What is Brand Awareness?
Brand awareness is the degree of familiarity that your brand enjoys among your target audience. Let’s say your brand is associated with e-commerce. When your target audience wants to buy something online, would your brand be at the top of their mind? If yes, then your efforts to grow your brand awareness have been successful.
Building brand awareness breeds familiarity and trust in the minds of the consumers. When brands succeed in building awareness, consumers make purchase decisions in their favor. Such awareness is the first step of the sales funnel.
In e-commerce and social media, influencer marketing is the best way to build brand awareness.
Why does Influencer Marketing Work?
In traditional marketing, word of mouth is one of the most potent vehicles of brand awareness. Influencer marketing is the digital avatar of word of mouth for your brand. The best part is, influencer marketing for ecommerce happens over digital mediums, making it easier to keep track of the audience’s response and measure it objectively. Let’s look at the reasons why your brand should work with influencers.
- Word of Mouth Marketing – Influencers have dedicated followers among social media users who trust their expertise and enjoy the high-quality content they create. Their strong rapport with audiences helps build brand awareness when they talk about your brand on social media.
- High-Quality Audiences – Audiences show more involvement and pay better attention to whatever an influencer says. There are no ad blockers between an influencer and their followers, making them more receptive to marketing and sponsored content by an influencer.
- Credibility – Influencers enjoy a better level of trust among their followers than celebrities or plain old advertising content. People are more likely to make purchase decisions based on a positive review by an influencer they follow.
- Content Quality – Influencers create fresh content that their audience looks forward to engaging with. Integrating brand-related content into entertaining content created by an influencer humanizes your brand and connects it with the audience.
How Can You Increase Brand Awareness Through Influencer Marketing?
Before partnering with an influencer, it is essential to analyze their audience and their content to understand what an influencer can do for your brand. Choose to associate with an influencer only if the demographics of their followership match your brand’s target audience and create content aligned with your brand values and image. Let’s take a look at how influencers work with brands to spread brand awareness.
- Create Engaging Content – Work with the influencer to create brand-related content that resonates with the audience and doesn’t look forced. Offer guidelines and suggestions about the messaging you want the influencer to use and give them the freedom to create content that the audience will enjoy.
- Run Contests or Giveaways – Contests and giveaways generate curiosity about your brand on social media. To get maximum traction to keep a prize that’s valuable to the influencer’s followers. Use this opportunity to get the audience to like your social media page, register on your website or fill out a form. It will help you generate fresh leads and increase brand awareness.
- Referral Programs – Recommendations by an influencer work as well as peer recommendations do. Offer an exclusive discount code or promo code for an influencer’s followers to prompt them to visit the link or make a purchase. Make sure to ask your influencer to mention the brand name in their content to build trust and improve brand recall.
- Unboxing Videos / Tutorial Videos – Unboxing videos are great for a new product launch, and it helps generate interest in your new offering. Send a goodie basket to the influencer, and they will document the whole process from unboxing to using your product and share their experience on social media.
Tutorial videos are great to help your audience know more about your brand and the products you offer. People would much rather watch a tutorial video than read the instructions in a booklet.
- Invite Influencer to Contribute to Your Blog – Offer a guest post to well-known influencers on your blog and ask them to promote the content. It is a mutually-beneficial strategy to drive traffic to both your platforms.
- Brand Ambassador Program –Influencer recommendations can help build brand awareness and also prompt more people to make purchase decisions in your favor. Therefore, signing up an influencer as your brand ambassador can help your brand in the long-term. You can pay them a commission each time you make a sale through the influencer.
- Social Media Takeovers – Social media takeover means letting an influencer take over one or more of your social media accounts for some time. During this time, the influencer will create brand-specific content and post it on your social media channels. It helps engage your social media followers better and attracts their followers to join your channel too.
Influencer marketing is essential to build brand awareness in this age of social media. A strong influencer marketing campaign can help you reach your target audience and convince them to engage with your brand. Develop long-lasting relationships with influencers and partner with them to boost your brand awareness and build a seamless channel to your target audience.
About the Author: Rachel Smith is a communication executive who works with the content marketing team at Affable, an influencer marketing company that provides AI-driven solutions that allows you to plan and execute your influencer campaigns strategically. She develops content around social media and marketing topics that can help her readers understand the world of influencer marketing.
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